


Baby You're a Haunted House

by PostNox



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Architect Rey, F/M, Haunting of Hill House - AU, Horror, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lawyer Ben Solo, Major character death but not Ben or Rey, Steven King vibes, ghost and MURDER
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22474054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostNox/pseuds/PostNox
Summary: In the darkness, the estate remained in a state of desolate and neglect. Vines choked around cracked columns and into windows, the weeds had overgrown, and there was no mistaking the stark absence of life inside the iron wrought gates.He wasn't just ready to kill the past, he's ready to make it a bloodied, pulsing, begging thing. Everything ahead is dead, burned soil and charred trees. He tossed the empty gasoline container on the ground. The past wouldn't just die, he would raze it. Any remaining remnants would be stamped ash under his heel.Houses were always harder to burn.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. Ben Sees a Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Should I start another WIP?  
> Nooooooo  
> Am I going to anyways  
> yes.

_Chevy Chase MD_  
_October 12 2018_

Ben dreams of a door. 

He can only really tell that it's a door by the faint outline of light that peeks through the frame, otherwise he's standing at the end of a seemingly never ending hallway the elopes him in pitch darkness. 

He can't see, but he knows the smooth finish of oak, the symmetrical molding that etches out deep lines that arch is sharp lines. The paint is peeling on the hall walls, but the door is still perfectly black as though time hadn't touch it at all. The brass handle gleams in the darkness. 

He knows he shouldn't, but he wants to see what's on the other side and he wants to see it badly. He's not scared, he's not curious. He's nothing, a blank emptiness, a stark white against ebony. And that room is something, spilling under the door with the light against the wooden floorboards. 

He wakes up and jerks upward, inhaling air like he hadn't taken a breath in hours and his throat is burning.

Still heaving, his eyes sweep his surrounding. The room is empty, just how he had left it.

He swears and reaches for his phone, switching on his lamp in fluid motion. On the screen in bold letters: One missed call. One new voicemail. 

He blinks and unlocks his phone. The phone call and voicemail are both from Finn. 

The English Greyhound at the end of his bed, who had somehow slept through all the chaos, stirs and groans loudly, tucking his face back into his body. 

He only glanced at Deeoh before slide a thumb down on his screen and tapped on the sideways triangle. 

"Hey Ben." It barely even sounds like Finn. His voice is restrained, trying to sound casual, but failing completely, and something else that he can't quite identify. "I'm sorry for calling. Uh, call me back."

He doesn't deleted the voicemail. He goes back immediately to his call log, finding Finn at the top and tapping on the call symbol. He presses the phone to his ear and waits, the dial tone rings several times before he get's Finn's voice message. He ends the call before the next tone and his eyes look at the clock in the corner, it's just a little after three in the morning.

It's just enough time to go back to sleep, but he doesn't plug his phone back. Instead he collapses back into the mattress and thinks. 

Ben wouldn't say Finn and he were close, but close enough since he had been in a long term relationship with his sister. Ben turned up the volume for his notifications, unwilling to miss another call.

For a second he wonders if he should text Rey and immediately discards the idea. She wouldn't even pick up.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. The hot water takes a second to warm up so he turned on the faucet while he flipped up the toilet seat and relieved himself. 

He splashed warm water on his face and dried off with a hand towel. Outside, it's still dark, it wasn't even close to dawn yet. Ben tried hard to focus on his own reflection and not at anything past himself, it always creeped him out to see out the window with his back turned toward it.

He flipped the lights on as he maneuvered into the kitchen, his hands fumbling against the walls as he searched for the familiar switches. His coffee machine automatically started at five in the morning, it took him a minute to remember to press the start button. 

The machine hummed, the water filtering into the heater and by the time he pulled out cereal from the cabinet, the pleasant aroma of coffee filled the space. 

His phone remained lifeless on the counter, Ben unlocked the screen just to double check. He had a email from Ticketmaster. He really need to unsubscribe from their mailing list. 

Coffee spilled over the edge, burning his hand in the process of picking it up. He grimaced, but fought through the pain, balancing his cereal bowl in the other hand and walking carefully to the nearest bar stool.

He had finished breakfast, scrolled through the headliners for the Washington Post, and deleted newsletter emails that flood his inbox by the time the blue light of the morning flooded into his apartment.

Deeoh was up already, stretching grumpily, nails scratching against the marble tile flooring. He muffled a howl at Ben and scratched at his bowl, his less than polite way in asking for breakfast. Ben scowled, but obliged, knowing he wouldn't stop anytime soon. 

It was just another Monday morning. With another sip of coffee, Ben sat back down and unlocked his phone and checking it to see if Finn had called back for the tenth time, perhaps he somehow missed it. Nothing. 

He opens his messages and finds a thread between him and Finn from forever ago. His fingers fly across the screen and he sends the message in quick motions.

_Are you okay? Call me back._

He sets the phone down and takes another sip, the mug hadn't even made it back to the counter since he picked it up. Yeah, just another Monday morning.

Except it wasn't. Ben is nearly done with the day, a slow day by all means. Tedious meeting with clients had all but sent him off the edge. He can't help, but check his phone when in between, which is not enough time. He's getting his billable hours in, if it kills him or not. 

His phone vibrated loudly in his pocket, the fabric barely muffled the noise. Hux paused in his monologue about court procedures to glance over at him. Ben felt a flash of annoyance burning in the side of his skull, but he elected to disregard it. Nine out of ten, Ben would ignore his phone. Usually it was on silent so this was a rare occasion anyways for him. Today was different. Something didn't feel quite right still and he was anxiously waiting to see if Finn would text him back. 

To be frank, he almost had a panic attack midday when he went through the scenarios of possible reasons Finn would get back in touch with him. Maybe he wanted to get something off his chest, maybe he was drunk, maybe it was about Rey. Was Rey okay? Maybe something happened to her.

It took a massive effort on his part to not scroll through his contacts, all the way to the R's, and starts a new message. He deleted the old thread a while ago. 

He didn't have to give in after it all, thank whatever deity.

The screen lit up, the name across the display nearly made his heart jump out his throat, _Rey_.

"Excuse me." He mumbled to the clients across from him, Hux glared briefly before returning to a conversation that Ben had no interest in anymore. The client was lying anyways, something that would be uncovered in a simple computer forensics investigation. It could be sorted later.

He closed the door firmly behind himself and took a deep breath before tapping the green icon. 

"Hello? Rey?"

"Oh my god, Ben. Thank god you answered." Rey sounded entirely too relieved. His throat instantly dried and Ben, who had been graced by the gods for his eloquence and quick wit, couldn't for the life of him think of a thing to say back. He was no better than a stuttering middle school preteen asking a girl to the school mixer.

"Listen, I'm so sorry. I know you're busy, but have you talked to Finn by any chance?"

His brain clunked clumsily into second gear. "Actually, he called me last night. He hasn't called me back yet."

"Did he leave a message?" She sounded hopeful. 

"Yeah he did. He just asked me to call me back, but-" He bit his lip. He didn't want to worry her unnecessarily, but this was obviously important, more important than his limping, bleeding pride. "Is everything okay?"

"I don't know." She sighed heavily, he could practically hear her pinch the bridge of her nose. He would bet anything that's what she was doing. "He called Poe and I too. Poe talked to him and he was really off. It wasn't like him at all. I just-" Her voice cracked.

He swallowed hard. "I'll call him again if you want. I'll let you know if I can get a hold of him."

"He's still not answering any of our calls, but it wouldn't hurt. I'm heading over to his place right now, he didn't go to work apparently either." 

And she was driving. Ben knew the muffled noise of cars passing by, or more likely, her passing them. She should get off the phone. The problem was that after six months of radio silence, Ben didn't want her to get off the phone. Six months of resentment, frustration, and all the other things that came from breaking up, Ben thought he was in the place where he didn't want to her from her again, he would decline her calls without a second thought.

He was wrong, so very wrong.

"Listen, text me when you find him. I'll let you know if he answers, promise."

"I will, I will." She said. "Thank you, Ben. It means a lot."

And the call ends. He looks down at this phone, her name disappearing from the screen and his home screen appearing, which was a picture of Deeoh at the trail marker for the Appalachian trail. He swallows the glint of hurt that comes with the receipt of her call and taps on Finn's name again. The line rings and keeps ringing until Finn's recorded voice plays. _"Hi this is Finn..."_

Two more hours go by and she doesn't call. By the time he's back to his car and commuting home, she still hasn't texted back. When he pulls up to his building and walks into the elevator, he almost throws his phone on the opposite wall.

Instead, he walks to his door and twist the key in the door, pulling it open and letting himself in.

He flipped on the lights to the hallway and almost fell over backwards at the sight of dark figure, obscured in the shadows in the corner of his kitchen.

"Jesus fucking christ. Finn, what the hell are you doing here?" Ben shouts, his blood pulsing madly and still isn't able to regain full control of his limbs. "I thought you broke in! Do you not answer your fucking phone anymore?"

Finn remained in place, eyes wide and trained on Ben. 

Ben bends down and picks up the briefcase that he had thrown on the ground, he hadn't even realized he let it go. If he was smarter, he would have thrown it at the intruder. Lucky for Finn, Ben was able to be scared into full body paralysis.

"Rey can't get a hold of you, do you know what you're doing to her? She's freaking the fuck out. I mean, she called me, so that's not really a good sign, is it?" Ben is ranting now, the pent up energy from near cardiac arrest not dying easily. He chucks his briefcase in the closet and fumbles in his pockets for his phone, struggling to remove his jacket and throwing in at the bottom of the closet. This was not the time for hangers.

"You came all the way to DC and didn't even think to send a text? How'd you even get in here? They aren't suppose to just let anyone inside my apartment." He turns around to find the other light switch. "Are you going to sit down? I need a fucking drink before you lay this on me." His minibar is in the dining room where a bottle of Macallan is calling to him. 

Finn is still standing in the kitchen when Ben passes by the divider wall. "You don't get one. That's how mad I am at you."

He reaches for the bottle and unscrewed the cap. His fingers hover over two glasses as he decided whether he was going to stand by his statement or not. He grabs one glass decidedly and let it fall on the credenza with a heavy, thump. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket where he disposed of it, momentarily distracting him. He finished his pour as he reached into his slacks and felt for the slim device, pulling it out and setting the bottle back down.

It's not Rey's name, but Poe that's across his screen. It's just one thing after another it seems tonight. He presses the green button and holds it up to his ear. 

"Poe?"

"Ben?" His voice, quiet and serious, a tone that was very unlike his friend for as long as he had known him. "Where are you?"

"Listen, I need to call Rey, but-"

"Don't call Rey. Listen to me, don't call her." Poe's voice was urgent and cracked. "She told me to call you. It's Finn. He's gone."

Ben snorted. Yeah, he was gone alright. "Funny story actually, maybe you should come over."

Poe kept talking like he hadn't heard him. "She's going to fly out here tomorrow or the next day. It's not good, it's really not good."

"Wait, wait. She's flying here? To Washington?"

"Finn wasn't in California. He was here, in Virginia."

"Yes, I know. Really you should head over here. I don't want to ruin the surprise for you." Ben rolled his eyes. 'Is she coming to get him then?"

"Ben." Poe snarled. "What is your problem? Finn is dead. They found him in the house, Ben. He's gone." And then he heard muffled sobbing. Poe must have pulled the phone away and the call ended. 

Ben froze, his hand still clutching onto the glass bottle that he already set back on the tray, his glass filled halfway with amber liquid. He forgot the drink and slowly walked back into the living room, hand still wrapped around his phone in a steely grip. 

He turned the corner to the kitchen and it was empty. 


	2. Time to Come Home

_Vader Estates_  
_February 18 2018_

He had to admit, he got himself in this mess in the first place.

It started with his uncle, who gave him a call out of the blue on a Thursday while Ben was driving back home after a long day, one which he had stayed four additional hours longer in his office than he planned. He was already pretty pissed off by the time he pressed the phone button on his steering wheel and spat out, "What the hell do you want this time?"

He could hear Luke sigh through every front and side speaker. It was almost satisfying.

"I'll just have my lawyer contact you then if you wanna go this way."

Ben tapped his breaks, riding the car ahead of him that was barely going seventy-five. In the furthest left lane of the four lane interstate. He narrowed his eyes at the center screen of his navigation system. Luke didn't hang up.

"What do you need a lawyer for?"

"Are you going to be an asshole?"

It was Ben's turn to sigh. "What do you need a lawyer for?"

Luke nearly chuckled. Ben gripped the steering wheel and refraining himself from laying on his horn at the ancient Civic that pulled out in front of him.

"We're selling the house. You would get a profit, of course, but you need to come fill out some paperwork."

That didn't make sense. "The house? The Chandrila house?"

"The estate." Luke cleared his throat. "The estate in Exegol."

And now Ben was halfway through the Blue Ridge Mountains, heading to Vader Estates. His mother hated the name and changed it to Skywalker Estates, naming that the former title looked bad in the real estate flyer. She wasn't wrong. The name had been taboo in every household for his family and rightly so.

Rey, whose feet were kicked up and crossed so they barely hung outside the window was humming along to a Foo Fighters song. _They aren't on your dash, they're on the window!_ Her white converse were tossed somewhere in the backseat. She was leaning sideways so that her shoulder was pressed against his arm and her head rested on his shoulder when she leaned back. 

_"Turn left in one hundred feet"_ , the GPS chirped.

"You've really never been here before?" Rey asked, her fingers pulled across the navigation screen to see a larger map of their destination.

"Nope." Ben drawled. He had lost track of how many times he had told her that in that week alone.

"I just can't imagine my family having so many houses that I hadn't been to them all." She said impassively.

He gave her a long look. "This is an inheritance. We never bought it."

'Yeah, yeah." She waved him off. "Still."

The car pulled onto a dirt road that stretched onward in windy sharp turns. The overgrowth of tree hung loosely, obstructing his view as he pulled around the narrow bends. "Looks like you're going to have some landscaping to do."

"You could help." She chirped.

He didn't reply. Any answer would bring trouble for him and he wasn't a goddamn gardener. He would sneak an arborist and pay him time and a half to work the graveyard shift and do it for him if it came to that.

They approached the iron gates, massive in size and topped with sharp narrow spikes at the end of each wrought. Beyond, lay the estate of Darth Estate. It was surprisingly intact, except for the veins growing up the side of it's stony exterior and wrapping around the columns of the port. Growing up, Ben had only seen photos of Skywalker Estates. Grainy black and white photos didn't full account for its actual size. Ben gets out of the car and stands up, taking the enormity of the property and it kind of made him feel dizzy. An uneasiness settles in the pit of his stomach. 

The gates are all manual so he has to open them himself in order to drive through. They swing open with easy and stay in place as he pushes them aside. Climbing back into his car, he hesitates, his hand clutching over the gear stick.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" He can't stop himself from asking. The words tumble out of his mouth and it's not coming from a place of resentment, an argument that had been replaying of the last few weeks when Rey told him she wanted to help Poe and Finn restore his grandfather's old mansion that they had bought from Leia and Luke, much to their dislike. Yes he would miss her and yes, he was dreading living alone again, which had been ironic seeing as that he waited so long to ask her to move in because he thought he would hate living with someone else.

No, he was a little afraid, he realized.

He didn't blame her for the narrowed eyes and sharp retort in response, she was replaying _that_ argument again.

"I'm sure." She said firmly.

He pulled the car to the entry port and he slowed to a stop, shifting the car back into park.

"Well, well, look what the cat dragged in." A voice overhead caused him to flinch and jump back.

Poe, hanging halfway out of a window from the third floor, laughed at him.

He disappeared from view and they could both hear him shouting, the reverberations his voice echoing from several open windows.

Ben closed his door and popped the trunk. Rey was already out and making her way to the massive wooden front doors. She isn't even on the top step by the time they swing open and Finn charged out, embracing his sister in a full on hug. She laughed and let him pull her off the ground.

"Thank god, Rey. It's lucky you're an architect, we're already way over our head." Finn groaned and released her.

Ben offered a hint of a smile and opened the backseat doors. Deeoh, who was normal high strung and excitable for all new adventure, did not jump out as usual. Ben frowned and leaned down, searching for the dog.

Deeoh was on the floor, pressing himself against the far side of the car.

"Come on." Ben tapped the top of his leg and held the door out wider. Deeoh refused. Ben grumbled and shut the door, electing to opening the other door if he was going to be difficult. The moment he opened the other side, Deeoh yelped and scrambled to the driver's seat and hid under the dash.

Ben shut the door and looked for Rey on the porch. Poe had already made his way down and approached the car. "Is everything okay?"

"Damn dog is losing it." Ben griped.

Poe peered into the car, peaking the door open an inch. "That's weird. We lost BB the other day because he kept taking off for the woods. Wouldn't listen to a single command, which he's independent, but not like that."

"Is he okay?" Ben realized that the equally energetic Corgi wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"We had to chain him up in the back. I thought it was just the new environment."

"Yeah, well it's a creepy house." Ben mumbled. Poe made a face at him and opened the door fully, reaching for the trembling Greyhound and carrying him away.

"Maybe they'll do better together." Poe called back and retreated to the walkway that wrapped around the house.

Rey watched with concern as Poe passed her. "What's wrong with Deeoh?"

Ben shrugged. "Poe's taking him to BB. We can check on him later."

Rey pursed her lips and watched at Poe disappeared around a corner. Finn pressed a hand to her shoulder in reassurance. "Let's get your stuff first, okay?"

She nodded and let Finn pull her back to the car. Ben walked back to the trunk and pulled out her carry on and a single duffel bag. She didn't pack nearly enough in his opinion, but she didn't really need anything beyond clothes to work in. All her gear had already arrived with Finn and Poe the week prior.

"This is all you brought?" Finn raised an eyebrow at her.

She glared at Finn and Ben and slung a duffel bag across her back, not dignifying the question with a response.

"I can bring anything she forgot later. I'll be back in a few weekends to help out a little. She's too stubborn for her own good." Ben lowered his voice so that Rey couldn't hear him.

Finn snorted. "Tell me about it."

Ben shrugged his own backpack over his shoulder, took her carry on in one hand and closed the trunk with the other. Finn led the way back into the house.

"The place is massive, a total project. I'm glad Rey is here, we ran into a few things that we couldn't just figure out with Youtube. The service up here is awful too. Sometime we have to go in town and find WiFi just to get past the buffering."

"It's all the ghosts, they block data." Ben scoffed. 

And for the first time in the entirety of his life, Ben stepped into his later grandfather's mansion. Everything was impossibly grand, the ceilings were high, trimmed with oriental crown molding and arches curved into beams and into columns that lined the narrow halls. On the immediate right, the grand staircase curled around to the second floor, faded red carpet leading at path up.

In the corner, stacks of portraits leaned against the wall. There were so many they nearly took up an entire side leading down to the open doorway into the next room. Ben wandered over and bent down to look at the first one. It was a barren landscape scene of flat plains inky clouds rising up from the horizon.

"There is at least hundred more still up. Your grandfather sure liked art." Finn sorted through the portraits next to the one he was looking, leaning them against his leg to hold them until he got to the last painting. "We asked Leia or Luke to come out and pick up any of them that they wanted, but they told us to throw them out. If you want any you better take them before Poe takes them to donation."

Ben glanced over at the painting Finn was trying to pull out and shivered. It was another landscape portrait, except an arctic layout of polar bears devouring half a carcass of what must have been a seal.

"Throw that one out at least." Ben's nose wrinkled. "Like I said, ghosts."

Finn nodded in agreement. "This is just the first floor. I wasn't exaggerating about the hundreds of them." He shrugged as to say, it is what it is. "Hungry? The staff make lunch at noon and they are very strict about the timeline."

"Staff?" Ben asked quizical.

"It was a condition of buying the place. The staff stay on, per your uncle Luke." Finn answered. "Although I don't think they like working here either so I don't know why they've stayed on."

In the corner of his eye, Ben saw a flash of yellow and recoiled away.

Rey, who had changed into a wool tuscan sweater, frowned at him. "Jumpy much?"

"You came out of no where." He muttered and reached out for her arm to pull her towards him. "Cold already?"

"It's freezing." She hissed and let him pull her in. She shivered against him and tucked her head against the crook in his arm.

"Wait til night. We already put extra blankets in your room." Finn raised an eyebrow. "It's a work in progress."

"So what first?"

"Lunch?" Finn grinned, already knowing the answer.

Rey nodded in long exaggerated motions.

"You found your room then?" Finn tossed the bag that was in his hand at the bottom of the stairs and reached for the one Ben had set down as well. "Wait til you meet Alcida and Auk. They don't speak a word of English, but they're a delight."

Finn then led them through the long passage of hall. The house, which seemed impossibly large even from the outside, felt even longer than it should. The halls were narrow and identical. At the end of each hall, it divided into three more hallways, two on each side and one that continued forward. The only distinguishing factor was the paintings that now lay neatly stacked against each other on the floor, leaving the walls bare. Finn never mentioned it, but the paintings got increasingly disturbing as they made their way forward. Ben slowed at a depiction of a war scene, carcasses of horses and soldiers scattered across a battlefield. One solider in particular was impaled by a bayonet. 

At the end of the house, they reached the kitchen. It must have been room that received the most natural light, the entire wall was comprised mostly of windows. Although most of the appliances looked ancient, it had obviously been well maintained. Nothing was out of place and it was meticulously clean. At the center butcher block island, a short middle aged women with a bonnet tied around her head, scaled a trout. She glanced up at them only, pausing mid-slice, before attending back to her task. 

If she had been on staff in the days his grandfather was still alive, Ben didn't doubt she hadn't updated her wardrobe since then. 

"Alcida mostly attends to the housekeeping, she has a garden outside too. Auk is always wandering about, but he's helped quite a bit at helping us find our way around." Finn explained.

And as though on cue, the stout man who must been Auk walked around the corner. Under his arm were stacks of long scrolls which he proceeded to dump on the island. Alcida glared at him and moved her fish as to keep it away from the tumbling rolls of paper. Auk grabbed a scroll and pointed it out at Finn and then at Rey. Rey tentatively took the scroll and unraveled it. 

"Oh good, I was hoping he understood what I was saying. That should be all the blueprints for the house, like you asked for."

Rey held out the aged blueprint, it had been hand drawn in thin black ink, comprised of lines and scribbled numbers and letters. Ben took one look and immediately lost interest, but for Rey, it was like finding buried treasure. 

Alcida intoned something in Lanais and pointed at the clock. It was a little before eleven AM. 

"We should go, she doesn't like company when she's working. Poe knows all about it." Finn mumbled. They left the kitchen, pausing at the sound of shriek somewhere inside the house. The voice echoed in a way that sounded like it could have been the next room over or it could have been coming from upstairs. They froze, but then-

"Finn? Buddy? Can you lend me a hand?" Poe shouted distantly. 

Finn rolled his eyes. "Meet up in an hour? Why don't you check out the place?"

They nodded in agreement and Finn darted away.

Ben squeezed Rey's hand. "Show me to your room?"

She smirked and tugged him forward. "This way." But on the trek back to the front of the house, she paused. "This way right? It was straight ahead?"

Ben frowned. The halls didn't seem straight anymore, but angled slightly in opposite ends. He swiveled his head from one way to the other and decisively chose the rightmost hall. "If we get lost and nobody can find us, is that a bad thing?" His fingers traced down the curve of her spine. 

She turned to raise an eyebrow at him. "That depends. If Finn and Poe see my bags still on the bottom of the stairs, they might just bring them to my room themselves. We should take care of that first, you know, just to be safe."

"Just to be safe." He pulls her back, both hands reaching for each side of her hips. He bows his head to brush his lips against the side of her neck and he can feel her shiver against him. She leans back, pressing her body fully towards him.

"Ben." She breathed out. "Ben, we gotta make it upstairs at least."

He huffs and moved to brush past her, taking long strides towards where he hoped was the staircase. He was right in direction and soon they arrive back at the front door. He grabbed both bags, ignoring her attempts to reach for one or her protesting, and takes the staircase two steps at a time. She passed by him at the top of the stairs to lead him to where her room was. 

Typically nothing would grab his attention at a time like this, but before he took another step to continued down, yet again, another long and narrow hallway, he paused to look up the continuing flight of steps. The staircase continued up to the third floor and the air was open and wide. On the opposite wall was the largest portrait he had seen so far in the house. It was an oil painting of Anakin Skywalker that took up the expansion of wall, his eyes trained forward and mouth pulled in a straight line. Although Ben had seen pictures of his grandfather before, he hadn't seen very many. His mother refused to acknowledge Anakin's existence, embarrassed of what her father had become. He remembered as a child, he had come across the faded Polaroids a sealed box in the attic. 

"Ben?" Rey called. He turned and found her poking her head out of a doorway almost near the end of the hall. "You coming?"

"On my way." He answered back. With one last glance, Ben decided that, that, was the next painting to come down. 


	3. A Feeling

_October 15 2018_

The airport at Baltimore is more run down than she remembers.

The terminal walkways are bleakly off white and she reminds her of a dirty, dimly lit hospital. She doesn't miss the humidity that lingers in the air, DC was built on a swamp after all. She thinks it's the most likely reason it's hard to breath until she sees Poe's Corvette pull up to the curb and it's very apparent the heaviness in the air is merely a factor.

She throws her backpack in the back before she slides into the passenger side. Poe doesn't even give her time to fasten her seat belt before he fully embraces her in a death crushing grip. Bitter happiness sweeps through her. She had been preparing for this moment the entire flight over, but the rush ambivalence is constrict in the confided space in the car. She puts aside her own pain and let's Poe hold her. He only pulls away when sirens scream behind them and the county police cruiser behind them honks at them to pull away.

Poe shifts the car into drive and wipes furiously at his face as he pulls out and they drive away.

Summers in Maryland were different than the west coast. The trees stayed green and lush, overhanging the fence lines and highway, vibrant and alive. She had always felt tied into nature in this place, the birch trees and hemlock groves reignited a homesickness that she had buried over years of resentment and heart ache.

"I still live in College Park, do you want swing by Thai food on the way?"

Imaging the taste of curry, her go-to selection on the menu, makes her physically ill. "I won't eat any, but if you need to get food, go ahead."

His head turns a quarter of an inch, he snaps his head back forward almost immediately. "No, I wouldn't either."

The rest of the time driving down the parkway is spent in silence.

Poe's townhouse is a federal style house adorned with a rock garden out front and a crooked mailbox nailed clumsily on paneling, he must have pried off the fake shutters that once aligned the windows. The door isn't even fully open before BB noses his way out and leaps up at Rey.

"It," She glances around. "is just how I remember."

Coats hung on the back of chairs, pillow scattered the floor and the couch, the remote for the tv was on the console table where Poe had probably forgotten it, and pictures of her, Poe, and Finn hung crooked on the wall between the hallway and the kitchen.

"Cleaner." Poe winked.

Poe let the silence sit. BB had quieted down and was laying on the floor, eyeing the two nervously. They were still standing, only moving a few feet into the living room in the last few minutes. Rey kicked off her shoes and hung her jacket on the iron hanger on the wall. She went to the kitchen first to get a glass of water and then she sat on the sofa opposite of where Poe had been seated.

"Rose?" Poe asked weakly.

"She'll be in tomorrow night." Rey took a sip.

"Fuck." He lets his head fall into his palms. "It's just so fucking unfair.

She didn't reply, only nodded methodically along.

Call it self preservation, disassociation, whatever. Her movements were sluggish and disjointed since that day. She felt only as hallowed version of herself, a shell that moved and spoke words she only had an inkling of control over. In her peripheral, something green was flying towards her. Poe tossed a blanket at her. The fabric covered her head and she didn't even protest, she only allowed her body to finally collapse against the sofa and pulled it down so she could see. Poe flipped on the TV and set down the remote when he found National Geographic.

Rey drifted to sleep as the documentary played, images of space and starlight hazing in her vision as she slipped in unconsciousness.

+++

When Rey opened her eyes again, the room is growing dark, the setting sun casting shadows across the room that make her eyes take a few moments to adjust. The flickering glow from the television is the only other light in the room. She lifted her head and Poe was asleep in the armchair adjacent from her. His phone was vibrating loudly against the end table between them. Reluctantly, she sits up and moves to wake Poe. She freezes at the name across the screen.

"Poe." She enunciates, and then louder when he doesn't stir. "Poe."

He starts in a sudden movement when she tosses a pillow at him.

"Ben is calling you."

This wakes him up, awareness slamming into his drooping eyelids into wide wakefulness. He scowls. "Fuck Ben."

"You told him right?" Rey ignores the comment. There was some resentment festering between the two and although it was on her behalf, Rey knew better than to feed into it.

Poe scoffed, his phone was now in his hands and he was typing furiously. "Yeah he knows."

"If there's still issues, I can talk to him. If you guys aren't getting along."

"I won't put you through that." He said firmly. His fingers were scrolling against his screen.

"He can be an dick, but-"

"He can be a real dick, but there is a difference between that and how he acted. He was cruel, Rey. It was like he was joking about it." Poe grimaces, his knuckles turning white as he grasps the slender edge of phone. Without really looking, he yanks on the cord of the lamp on the table between them, the room filled with soft light again.

"How?" Rey is surprised how angry she sounds when she says it.

"I don't know. I don't think it would help to hear, you know?"

"Tell me." She said firmly.

Poe sighed and drummed at his legs with his fingertips. "Something about he already knew that Finn was here, but he was laughing about it. Like he didn't care."

"He knew?" Rey blinks. Things had moved so quickly after she had last called Ben, since she sat outside knocking on Finn's apartment door, since she got that phone call. "What does that mean? How could he know?"

Poe threw up a hand in agitation. "I don't know, Alcida had his family's contact information. Maybe he found out through them. I don't know the full story, Rey, but he knew and he didn't care." The thought nearly cut her in half.

The person that Poe was describing was so far away from the person that she talked to not even forty-eight hours ago. He had a problem expressing his feelings, that had only improved minutely. Despite it, he cared. When Finn's car broke down, Ben was the only that drove him to work, Rey didn't even find out about that until later. He had never been misleading about how he felt, good or bad.

Cunning, Ben Solo was, she had known that. He had never been deceitful.

 _That's not true_ , a voice whispers, echoing in the back of her mind.

Except for that, of course. She hadn't forgot that.

"His family is invited to the memorial. He doesn't have to go if you don't want." Poe says quietly.

She shook her head. "No, I don't want to do that."

"Are you sure?"

"No." She admitted. She bit her lip, subduing the emotions that were threatening to surface. "I want closure. I want to know why Finn went back into that damn house." She trailed off, unable to complete the full thought that had be bouncing in her skull for days. "What does Ben want?"

Poe scoffed, again.His phone vibrated, the screen lit up, glowing in a blue tint against his face. "He wants to know if you made it in."

"And you said?"

"To fuck off."

Rey sighs and closes her eyes. For a split second, she wished she could gorge him out of her. If she could take a scalpel and make an incision from the bottom of where her ribs meet in the center of her chest and trace it down to her navel. If she could reach beneath her skin and find whatever it is that binds him inside her, that slippery, bloodied, thing. If she could pry it out and chuck it out.

Because Ben Solo should be here, with them, mourning her foster brother with them. She hates herself for how much she wants it.

"I'm sorry." Poe says softly. "I shouldn't insert myself like that. It's easy to be mad at him, especially now. I shouldn't have."

It's dark outside now. Through the solitary row of window facing the parking lot, streetlamps flicker on and car headlights reflect from the adjacent building, casting into the room. Rey feels her stomach protest, it's been since five in the morning since she last had food, a untoasted bagel at the coffee shop closest to her gate.

"Let's go get Thai and then tomorrow, we can deal with the rest. Nobody said we had to deal with it all in one day, right?" Rey is already on her feet, reaching for phone that's most likely dead by now. "Tomorrow, we'll pick up Rose and go to Maz's. We'll pick out stupid pictures for the stupid slideshow." Tear are falling freely down the sides of her face now, but she doesn't break in tone. "Then we'll say goodbye to Finn on Saturday. But that's not today. Today, we're getting Thai food and we're leaving everything else for tomorrow."

He doesn't get up right away, but slowly, Poe follows her lead. Rey leaves her cellphone, now dead after an entire day of traveling and they leave the apartment. 

They're halfway across the city before Poe speaks again. "I want to sell it."

Rey shakes her head, understanding exactly what he means. "You know you can't do that."

"Finn's half is going to you now, most likely. I'll take care of it all, you don't have to do a thing." Poe says shortly. He's restraining himself, partly because emotions are already running too high as it is. "We can talk about it later. We'll deal with the rest later. After."

She doesn't reply. The car presses on through the night. 


	4. Sight

_Vader Estate_  
_March 9, 2018_

It's a mess really.

On the bottom floor, the fireplace is badly in need of being reworked, several lighting fixtures needed to replaced, the oak floorboards needed to be refinished, and not even to mention the amount insulation that need to be added. In the few weeks they had been there, the major projects list as increased expediently, as tended to happen in old houses such as this. 

Rey shivered, tugging her jacket closer. The house hadn't be occupied since the 1960s and the heating system was still a furnace in the basement from the 1930s at least. It wasn't even winter anymore and there wasn't a room that didn't feel above 40s.

It had been raining for the last three days and they discovered quickly that the roof was in dire need of replacement as well. Upstairs, the floor was littered with buckets, bowls, and any other container they could find. It was Finn's turn to monitor overflowing water and empty them out before the flood the house anymore. Later they would have to check for water damage and likely for mold. It would have to wait.

She pressed the phone closer to her ear, listening intently as the line rang.

And received Ben's voicemail again.

He didn't even bother having a personal message for his personal line and she hung up the second the automated voice toned on, not even bothering to hide her frustration.

"He's not answering still?"

Rey made a face and shrugged. Finn clasped a hand around her shoulder in reassurance with his free hand, plastic tarps gathered under his other arm.

"Come help me lay these out. He's a busy man and it's not even lunch yet."

Rey obliged reluctantly, following Finn up the staircase to the third floor. He handed her a tarp.

"Go start in the office, I'll do the other side." He nodded his head in the direction of the double door room on her right.

She accepted the blue plastic and stepped carefully over the arrangement of metal pails and buckets along the floor. Inside the office, onto water stained floorboards.

"Shit." She mumbled.

There's nothing to mop up the water. She briefly remembers a bathroom a couple rooms over and drops everything in her arms to find something to absorb the mess. 

The bathroom is further down than she thought. She navigated through the obstacles on the floor carefully, glancing into each room as she passed by. On the fourth room, she finally reaches the bathroom. Checking the linen closet and then under the sink, she finds nothing useful.

"Finn? Do you have any towels up here?" She hollered, closing the cabinet.

She heard him faintly from another room. "Check downstairs."

She huffs and made her way for the stairs. She barely stepped out of the bathroom when something heavy crashes behind her. Her head turns automatically towards the other end of the hall. At the end is a sleek black door with brass fixtures. She turned her head back slowly, her eyes meeting the steely gaze of Anakin Skywalker's portrait. He was positioned perfectly so that it appeared that he was staring straight at the door.

Rey quicken her pace and peered into the room where Finn was in. He was adjusting a pail under a trickle of water that hung from the ceiling. "Are you okay?"

He frowned at her. "Yeah, why?"

"It sounded like something fell, didn't you hear it?"

"I didn't hear anything." He started to walk towards her, peering out of the doorway. "Where did you hear it?"

She pointed down the hall. She was almost positive that the noise had come from behind her. The ruby oriental runner stretched onward down to the opposite side, ending just short of the black door. Lined against the walls were more portraits, all hung perfectly still and undisturbed. "Down there."

They walked together, checking each room for any signs of disturbances. By the time they reached the last room at the end, they both reach for the rounded brass door handle at the same time. Rey pulled her hand back. "Go ahead."

Finn clasped his hand over the handle and pulled, but the door didn't budge. Pushing and pulling, and finally hitting the black door out of frustration, Finn let go.

"It must be locked." He grunted.

Rey bent her neck and listened carefully with an ear pressed to the door. "This house is old. Maybe something fell over downstairs." She heard silence. Her hand reaches back down for the cold brass knob and for a moment, she though she felt it turn and pull open. Water leaked from the edges of opening and the door grew heavy from her palm. She realized a second too late that she needed to shut the door, whatever was behind it was going to flood to entire house.

Her phone in her back pocket vibrated, stirring her attention. She blinks and looks down at her hand. The door was still shut.

She retreats, heading back for the stairs. She unlocked her phone with a quick slide of her thumb and glanced over the message quickly.

It was from Poe. _More water damage, ripping out entire floor_.

"God," She inhaled sharply "damn it. They're saying it's water damage now. We can't catch a break."

"Go." Finn urged. "I'll finish here. Find you later."

She shoved her phone back into her pocket. It remained silent as she hurries down the stairwell, through the dimly lit hallways, and kept wandering. She hadn't figured out the layout yet and it was easily to get lost, even after a week of living there.

She passed by the electric technicians that were discussing in length with each other over faulty wiring solutions. They nod at her as they continue past her. At the end of the hall, she can hear Poe talking to the architecture salvage workers who were there to pick up a few portraits and furniture they had agreed to donate.

"It's no offense, mister. They're just awfully morbid." She emerges as one of the works grimaced, holding the end of the frame as far away as he could possibly could from his body.

On the other side of the room, the flooring contractors are measuring the warped floorboards and prying out the wooden boards. They've ripped up all the carpet covering them and they're laying scattered and bunched up around them. She caught Poe's eye and raised an eyebrow. He rolled his own.

"It's fine, it's really okay. It'll make good kindling I guess, it's the only way to keep this place warm right now." Poe tries to reassure the man. She knows that he'll complain about it later and she doesn't blame him. She wanted them gone as well. She felt uneasy every time she passed by them, like they were watching her pass them by.

Rey makes herself useful and approaches the contractors. "Water damage, I heard."

The bearded man nods and watched the salvage workers warily. "It's all rotted. They just covered it up with carpet. We have to take it all out."

She kicked the carpet back and revealed more dark splotched marks stained into the wood. "If that's what we need to do."

The salvage workers leave the room without any portraits. Poe joined her and motioned behind them at the stacked artwork. "Feel free to help yourselves. There are plenty."

The other contractor, the older man of the three, blanches. "I'm not even telling my wife I'm working up here. Lots of stories you know. I understand why now."

Rey relives the memory of Leia's reaction when Finn and Poe told her about the offer they put on the house.

"No." Leia shook her head furiously. "Absolutely not."

"Leia." Luke started.

"Shut up. We shouldn't even been selling it."

Ben shifted uncomfortably beside Rey, his patience growing fainter and fainter as the day continued. He had told her this had been a bad idea and he was probably annoyed now that he had to witness the fallout anyways. She gripped his hand tightly.

Luke fell silent as Leia continued her rant.

"You're considering this still. You're honestly considering it." She sighed angrily.

"We're not gutting it. Think of it like a restoration project." Poe interjected.

"That's not the problem!" Leia raised her voice.

Ben had told her the entirety of the history of Vader Estate, of his deranged grandfather who had bought the property with his wife. According to him, she had a psychotic episode and committed suicide shortly after she gave birth to Luke and Leia.

"Postpartum psychosis." Ben murmured. Anakin went insane shortly after, that's when he all but boarded himself into the house, scaring away mailmen and courageous teenage boys that dared with jump the fence. 

Rey is pulled back into reality, back into the dust coated room littered now with torn carpet and peeling wallpaper. Except she's wandered out into the hallway. She nearly shakes her head at herself when she realizes she's heading towards the kitchen, it was getting pretty close to lunch time and the aromas faintly whiffing through the air must have drawn out that side of her brain.

And she follows it, willingly.

+++

By nightfall, her phone laid silent beside her on the table. Still.

She refused to pick it up at this point and every time she glanced down at it, she became irremediably angry.

She thought about texting him again and discarded the idea almost immediately. She stabbed a ting of her fork through a perfectly golden potato, the metal scratched against porcelain in a way that made her wince internally.

"You okay there?"

She looked up. Finn and Poe were both staring at her, they hadn't even touched their own dinner yet.

"Fine." She grumbled.

They exchanged glances and picked up their forks.

"We can order pizza tomorrow from town, give the caretakers a break." Poe said before taking a bite. "It might be nice to get them out early."

"Uh huh." Rey tried to keep herself busy by glancing over the basement blueprints, again.

"Is he not coming this weekend?" Finn asked softly,

"He's not even answering." The paper crumbled in her hand as she clutched the paper.

They didn't dare respond to that. Instead, they turned slow back to their meals and eventually they talked about the house, about the plan for tomorrow. Rey doesn't add to the conversation, she just traces lines on the map detailing the structure of the top floor. It reminds her of another pressing issue.

"Where are the keys for the rooms?" She directed the question at Poe, finally looking up.

He chewed methodically, holding up a finger until he swallows. "There's a master key in the kitchen. Which room are you trying to get into?"

She flipped the map so it faced him and pointed at the room at the end of the hallway.

Poe took another bite and slide the blueprint closer to himself. "We can try tomorrow."

"Why not tonight?"

He shuddered. "I don't like the third floor when there's daylight out. I can't imagine what it's like at night." And then to silence her further, "That portrait gives me the heebie jeebies. I swear, it looked like it was frowning at me."

+++

Ben called her Friday morning.

Although she's upset, she can't bring herself to actually be too angry at him. She kicks at the flopped over piece of carpet that she had tried to pull up only a second ago.

"Hi Ben." She said casually.

"Rey." He breathed out in relief. "I'm so sorry, I should've answered you yesterday. I didn't even take lunch yesterday, it's been a clusterfuck over here."

She nods. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, you shouldn't be." He chanted. She can't hear anything in the background, but she knew he was pacing. He's a pacer when it comes to phone conversations. "I wish you were here."

She chewed her bottom lip. "Are you still coming over this weekend?"

There is silence on his end and she almost asked if he's still there until he breaks it.

"I told you next weekend."

"No." Her voice raised slightly. "You said two weeks. I've been here for two weeks now."

"I can't do this weekend, I've got to work and there isn't even Wi-Fi there yet, right?" He says steely.

She kicked at the carpet harder. The growing costs of the house and it's repairs had changed some plans. Internet had been one of them, it was more of a luxury than a necessity at this point. This wasn't the right time to tell him that. "No."

"Can you come home?" He sounded halfway hopeful.

"I can't either. I have to tear up all this carpet so the contractors can work on the floors. It's going to take me the entire weekend."

"I'll be there next Friday night. Okay? This weekend just didn't work out." He said quietly. There is a certain restraint to his words that only comes when he's negotiating, a act that doesn't come naturally to him at all. He's pretending to be okay with another solution.

"Okay." She repeats. There is something else that she was holding back, that she held behind her tongue even though it fought to pry itself between her teeth. That bitter resentment loosened her grip. "You promised you'd answer. I know you're busy, but just text me or something. I don't care what time it is. It scares me when you don't." _Because I don't trust you anymore_ , she's able to hold that back at least.

She expects a fight, she's used to that. She didn't need to finish her last thought, for him to know it. He knows it. It's all a mess, it's all his mess. She doesn't expect when she hears him swallow and answer. "I know. I'm sorry."


End file.
